Science has multiple goals: to describe the world, as it is now; to predict the future and to make inferences about the past. But science also aims to understand the world – to explain why it is the way it is. But what does it take to explain a phenomenon? What philosophical questions are at stake?
In this thorough and clearly written introduction to scientific explanation, Arnon Levy explores the following problems and questions:
- the background to the topic of scientific explanation, particularly the questions of what an explanation is, what makes a good explanation and why seek them in the first place
- empiricism about explanation: Hempel's Deductive-Nomological model and criticisms of Hempel's theory
- unificationism about explanation: are good scientific explanations those fit into an overall 'explanatory store'?
- causation and explanation: Salmon's 'statistical relevance' and 'mark transmission' arguments
- causation and explanation: Lewis's description-based model, Woodward's interventionist view and Strevens's criterion of selection theory
- connections between explanation and understanding
- non-scientific explanation: metaphysics.
Additional features, such as chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary make this an excellent resource for students of philosophy of science, metaphysics and philosophy of psychology.
1. Introduction: what this book (and isn’t) about
2. The history (and prehistory) of scientific explanation
3. The Move to Causal Accounts
4. Explanation and Difference-making
5. Production and Mechanistic Explanation
6. Models and Explanation
7. Beyond Causal Explanation
8. What is Understanding
9. Connecting understanding and explanation
10. Coda: the place of explanation.
Glossary
Index
Biography
Arnon Levy is associate professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He holds a PhD in philosophy and an MA in biology, both from Harvard University. Currently, he is head of the institute of Philosophy, Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the Faculty of Humanities.
